People have been posing as Microsoft employees to gain access to home computers and financial information. Steve Baker from S.R. Baker Computers said he has a few clients who have been victims of computer fraud.

"What they are doing is convincing people to give them remote access to their computers," he said, adding under the guise that they are calling to remove computer viruses, what they are really doing is installing malicious software to get banking information and passwords by secretly recording every key stroke on the infected computer.

The worst case he saw, Mr. Baker said, was a lady who was caught off guard because she had been having problems with her computer. They were on her system for two hours, he said, and even charged her credit card for the call.

"Unless you initiate a service call, never let anyone have remote access to your system," he said.

Mr. Baker said the lady was very embarrassed, but he added criminal organizations put a lot of time in to scamming people and their pitch can be very good catching a person off guard.

One thing they installed on her computer was a root kit that would have signaled them every time she was online, he said, and could also give the criminals all her e-mail contacts. Root kits can be very well hidden on a computer.

Viruses today are all about making money, he said, and years ago a virus would just shut down a computer, but nowadays financial gain is predominately the main motivation.

Mr. Baker said online banking is very popular these days and he uses it himself, but the key is to keep your computer safe and get educated as to what's out there.

"Your computer is only as safe as the people you correspond with," he said.

Sometimes a virus scan can't even identify all the problems a computer may have, Mr. Baker said, and in some cases the best thing is to go see a professional and have your hard drive wiped and then re-install your operating systems and programs.

A good anti-virus system like Norton is always a good thing to have, he said, but being aware and educated is important as well.

Don't respond to unsolicited phone calls. "If you haven't initiated the call, forget it - Microsoft will never call a person out of the blue."